


the living

by orphan_account



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-24
Updated: 2016-02-26
Packaged: 2018-05-03 03:25:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5274734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>3. Tomorrow, there were supposed to be more of us.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Weeks after the funeral, Philip’s voice still echoes in his ears. _I came to ask you for advice_ , and _It hurts_ , and _Daddy, where are you? I can’t see you anymore._

Alexander thinks on his own words as well. Things he could have said to prevent the duel, to comfort his son as he died. He repeats them in his mind but never sets a pen to paper even as condolences flood in the mail; for once, he has nothing to say to them. These days Alexander finds himself wondering more at the yawning chasm in his chest where happiness used to live, how something so empty could exist inside of himself while the world continues to turn.

Eliza smiles for their children, her face ashen and strained but she musters a veneer of hope. She’s always been the stronger of the two of them, unyielding and steady even when nothing around them felt solid.

At breakfast, Angelica wanders downstairs, cheery as always. Alexander braces for it.

“Papa,” she says as she straightens her dress and takes her place at the table between little Alex and James, “when will Philip be home?”

Eliza’s knuckles whiten. Alexander clenches his fists and commands his hands to quit trembling. His sons look at him, their eyes shadowed and nervous.

Angelica had fainted when Eliza broke the news to her, and seemed to have forgotten all about the episode upon awakening. They’d explained again and she’d cried, begged them to stop playing such a cruel prank on her, then retreated to her room. The next morning, she’d asked after Philip again. Eliza stopped explaining very shortly after, compelling Alexander to do the same. It’s just as well; neither of them can bear to see their daughter in so much pain, close as she was to her brother.

“Not today,” Eliza answers, stroking her fingers through Angelica’s hair and tucking a few strands behind her ear. “Finish your breakfast, dearest.”

James and Alexander are old enough to understand, scarfing down their meal and excusing themselves for school. Angelica rises when she’s done, leaves the kitchen and settles in the den at her piano. Strains of a simple nursery tune trickle to the kitchen as she warms up.

Alexander used to think himself an old friend of death. In Nevis, in New York, at Valley Forge– they’d met many times before. When his mother died, he’d found Peter Lytton; when Peter killed himself, it was Ned who’d pulled him back. Reports of Laurens’s death left him bereaved but functional; after all, he’d had a nation to build. He’d written about everything but John, then, the words coming to him fast and easy, his mind casting about for things to hold onto. When Washington died, he’d felt alone in government but the man had served long and well.

Today, Eliza sits heavily, her shoulders hunched over the table and her face in her hands, entire body shaking with grief as an anguished sob just barely escapes her body. Alexander reaches for her, but she flinches away from his touch.

All he can say is, “Betsey.”

She’s never accused him, but he wishes she would. Rage and blame in her tone would be preferable to the brittle quality of her voice, her eyes fixed on someplace far beyond the dining room. “We lost two children that day, Alexander.”

He casts his eyes toward his knees. “Don’t say that.”

“Angelica believes she is fourteen again,” she gasps, dashing away tears, “and Philip sixteen. Away at boarding school, Alexander. Is he? Could he be? Does Angelica know something that we do not?”

Alexander picks up a plate. “Allow her to continue believing until she comes to her senses,” he answers, the only option left to them. He looks at her drawn cheeks, frail wrists, and can’t remember the last time she’d had a proper meal. “Have you eaten yet?”

“You don’t understand, Alexander.” Her tone grows accusing for a split second before it flickers out, descending back into despair. “ _You_ , so rational and smart. You could never know what it’s like for us.”

Alexander piles a few rolls into the plate, fumbles as a raisin comes loose and falls to the tablecloth. He reaches for the pitcher of milk next, taking James’s abandoned glass and filling it for Eliza. When he pushes the plate across the table, she hardly looks at it.

“Every time she asks for him,” he begins slowly, “I believe for a second that we had simply been sharing a nightmare.”

Eliza finally glances up, her eyes red-rimmed to match his, hands wringing.  

Alexander continues softly, pressing a palm to his chest to still the quaver in his voice, fingers twisting into the material of his shirt. “Do you think I don’t hear his voice in every room, his shoes clattering down the hall? That I don’t dream every night of Phil arriving at our door, his books still– still tucked under his arm? Every time we sit at this table, Betsey, I imagine him walking through–  _that door_ – and sitting, so hard the chair slides back– and you would scold him, and he’d smile…”

“Alexander–”

“I understand, Betsey.” He knows it sounds like begging, his vision blurry, throat raw and nose running. “Now please, for the love of God, eat something. We can’t lose another.”

* * *

Six months later Eliza holds a swaddled baby in her arms, the boy still purple from his recent birth. Her hair and gown are drenched in sweat, a thoughtful frown on her face as she regards the newest addition to their brood. She doesn’t look relieved or happy, only exhaustion and grief mixing in her expression. “Philip,” she says softly so as to not wake him, “would have been so happy to meet this one.”

Philip always adored his younger siblings. He’d played with them, tutored them, chattered to his parents about their exploits and adventures. He used to take them down the block for sweets, as soon as he was old enough. Beyond the haze of sadness clouding their family, Alexander has never been anything but proud of his eldest. 

“We’ll call him that,” he says. The child could hardly have a better namesake.

“Call him what?”

“Philip.”

Eliza holds the baby close, arms wrapping more tightly around his swaddling cloths, as if to protect him from Alexander. “No,” she says. “No no no. Not Philip. Anything but Philip.”

But she shapes her lips around the word, familiar on their tongues and in their ears. Alexander aches to hear that name again– called across rooms, up and down stairs, shouted by the children.

“Philip,” Alexander says again, gently.

Easing him away from her chest, Eliza looks at the baby, tracing a fingertip across the faint, delicate arch of a dark eyebrow, smoothes her palm thoughtfully against the soft fuzz on top of his head.

“Philip,” Eliza finally concedes, pressing her lips to little Philip’s crinkled forehead as his face puckers, quiet wail in the back of his throat. Her voice cracks, tears streaming down her cheeks as she caresses his face, kisses it everywhere. “Our son. Look at our son.”


	2. Chapter 2

Domestic routines never appealed to Aaron the way it did many others; a craving for daily rituals hardly befits lawyers, especially one such as him, who must be ready to adjust his strategy at a moment’s notice. It’s been several decades since his legal counsel was the most sought-after in the state, but business has been trickling back with an acceptable speed ever since he moved back to New York.

(He’d only eked out ahead of Hamilton for the speed at which his proceedings would resolve; Burr is still convinced that Alexander won several cases through judge and jury fatigue alone.)

Still, these days he finds himself at the docks every morning just after sunrise. He stands at the edge of the wooden pier, occasionally dodging sailors and other passengers, gloved hands tucked in his pockets, nose buried behind the wool collar of his coat. Theodosia set out weeks ago on one of the quickest schooners in the United States; if she has forgotten to write him to report a delay or a stop at another port along the coast, he’s decided that he’ll excuse it on the basis of her condition.

In the meantime, Burr satisfies himself imagining his daughter strolling through South Carolina’s apple orchards, sitting in Virginian parks, attending parties in New Jersey with loving friends of her husband, pleasant detours on her way home. Perhaps the Patriot is in need of repairs; she would visit the docks, then, to check on its progress, eager to return to New York. That they might visit the pier each day at the same time warms his heart, and Aaron decides that when she arrives that will be the first thing he asks her.

He’s grown used to staring at the horizon, watching masts tip the shimmering line of water at the far reaches of his vision, solidify into ships as they draw near. Two months ago he’d ignored any ship outside of a certain size range– nowadays, he tracks every vessel on the water, standing near enough to watch passengers and crew disembark, but far away enough not to be conspicuous. He’s a familiar face to many of the dock workers, knows many of them by name, asks after families and children when he leaves for the day. Several have promised to send a messenger if a beautiful young woman should ask for him.

He’s watched their jovial greetings turn uneasy, pity growing in their eyes, some of them slinking behind buildings all the way across the yards to avoid crossing his path.

In mid-February Burr pens several dozen letters, one to each major port along the Eastern seaboard. He still visits the docks, no longer comforted by the thought of Theodosia vacationing in a state along the coast– she wouldn’t leave him to wonder like this, if she had the choice. Perhaps the ship’s been blown off course and she has chosen to recuperate in the sunny Caribbean, or she’s joined a convoy of  _conquistadores_  on the continent’s southern peninsula. She’d always wanted to.

The letters trickle back in early March, one after another.  _Mr. Edwards_ , each of them says,  _We have not received any ships named_ Patriot.

Spring seems to explode outside Manhattan, forests and mountains around the edge of the city bursting into vibrant greenery. Burr spends his last day on the docks admiring the verdant lushness across the river, watching birds fly in formation back to New York. Three ships arrive that morning: two cargo, one passenger. Theodosia is not on any of them. 

He walks back to his office, mind intermittently dragged back to the work he’d left undone the night before.

Back at his station, he sheds his gloves, tucks them into his jacket pockets and hangs the garment on a hook. Sitting, Aaron shuffles the stack of papers on his desk, straightens his blotter, retrieves a pen from a drawer and sets it in the inkwell. He picks up the pen twice, sets its tip to paper twice, both times returning the instrument to the well with nothing to show for it.

Absurdly, only three words rise above the roiling desperation clanging around inside his skull.

_Hamilton would understand._

His vision blurs, the words in front of him distorting as his face twists, hand clamping over his mouth to suffocate the scream that roars out of his lungs. (After all, there’s no point in scaring the neighbors.) The part of Burr’s mind that can never stay quiet notes with amusement that he’ll need to rewrite this entire memo; there are wet spots all over it now and the ink has run.

What remains, is Theodosia, Theodosia, Theodosia.  _Theodosia._  He manages to choke the words back in great heaving gasps before they can escape from between his fingers.  _I’ve failed you both._


	3. Chapter 3

Light from Hamilton's office window has been a familiar sight to Aaron for several weeks now, ever since they'd set up their respective offices. The place remains lit well into the night and often stays illuminated until dawn, which Burr takes note of when he begins his day early. 

When his workload is light Aaron can sometimes make it home before dusk, eager to join Theodosia and little Theo for supper. This day he works fast despite a growing number of clients, finishes well before his usual time. He's closed up and walking past Hamilton's building when the door opens, a figure stepping through, her face pinched with worry. 

He pauses. 

"Mrs. Hamilton," Burr says, cordially bending at the waist. "Is something the matter?"

She nods in greeting, hands clasped in front of her. She seems somewhat relieved to see him, despite the few times they've spoken. "Mr. Burr," Eliza answers, "I hope you're well?"

"I am, thank you. Yourself?"

"Well," she sighs, "you know Alexander. I'm afraid he hasn't been home much lately, and you've heard about Colonel Laurens."

Maybe it's her distress that prompts the offer; unbidden, little Philip Hamilton, not much older than his Theo, springs to mind. "I can speak to him," Burr volunteers; the loss of a friend is hardly an adequate excuse for neglecting one's wife and child. "I am finished for the day."

"I wouldn't want to impose, but if you could...?"

Aaron escorts her down the block and to her door before he ushers her inside. 

When he makes his way up to the office and toes open an unlatched door, Hamilton doesn't look over, face in his hands, ink-stained knuckles thrown into sharp relief by the lamp on his desk. There's a small basket by his chair, probably the reason for Eliza's visit. He seems braced-- for condolences, empty platitudes, well-meaning but meaningless words of comfort for a pain no words could soothe. 

Aaron's first inclination is to leave Alexander to his grief, as the man clearly seems to want. Instead, he crosses his arms over his chest and hovers in the doorway. "Hamilton," he says.

"Burr." Alexander's voice is even and measured.

He lets the silence hang, a few seconds for Hamilton to throw him out, if he wanted to. They've never been the best of friends, though Aaron likes to believe that they're on relatively good terms. Alexander says nothing, drags his hands down his face and keeps his eyes locked on the wall ahead. 

Burr knows that face; had worn it himself countless times as a boy. Helpless, lost, adrift in a sorrow that few can understand.

"They never stay," says Aaron, voice pitched carefully neutral. 

Hamilton seems to mull that over. "No," he answers. "They never do."

Whatever else Hamilton needs-- a distraction, more work, a friendly ear-- Burr decides that the man will have to seek it out on his own. Briskly: "You know where to find me."

Alexander turns to him at last-- gives a smile, drawn and fragile. "Yes."

Burr closes the door silently behind him as he leaves.

* * *

He doesn't expect, a few days later, to find Hamilton knocking on his door-- the first of many times he'll do so throughout their acquaintance. "Aaron Burr," says Hamilton, "sir, I trust you've been consulted to represent Levi Weeks as well?"

"As well?" Aaron repeats, a tendril of dread creeping up his spine as he blearily takes in the manic, bright-eyed look of the man in his doorway, seized by yet another obsession. "I was considering it, but if you've decided to counsel for Weeks, I wouldn't want to-- Alexander, it's nearly midnight. We can discuss this in the morning."

"Let's take this case together, Burr! We can't lose-- and winning will put us on the map."

Burr scrubs at his eyes, stifles a yawn and moves to close his door. "Go home, Hamilton."

A shoe squeezes itself between door and frame (the sheer _audacity_ \--), jamming it open. "Is that a yes?"

After a moment of hesitation (which Aaron spends silently cursing the way Hamilton demands answers, refuses to accept anything less than a concrete decision), he nods, watching for the moment Hamilton's foot moves out of his way. 

"I'll do it." Just before shutting the door in Alexander's face, Burr hisses, "Go home!"


End file.
